Xenodrgn

I have an X-plod (550 I think it is... I forget) and stock speakers... when I turn it up real high the sound gets very distorted... is there too much or too little power getting to them.


Basically would an amp or new speakers solve this?

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1985 Camaro SC - 2.8L, auto.

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DJSexay

definately not too little power. There are a couple things...

1 - overdriving the amp, if you have the gains up too high, your asking the amp to produce more power than it can cleanly, so it is going to distort.

2 - too much power for your speakers. If the speakers bottom out or make loud smaking sounds, you may be overpowering them.

mike

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custom 3rd gen kickpanels at http://www.lachernet.com/kickpanels

GeneralGrant

too little power can cause distortion at high volumes. In my old t-bird I had cerwinvega 6x8s off the head, which sounded much clearer and handled much higher volumes with an amp that had 2x the power of the head rms

Mista

Too litle power, pushing amp beyond its limits (gain too high in most cases) or power wire too small to deal with peak demands.

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86 T/A 5.0 A4 & 2.77 gear
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DJSexay

Guys, i just want to make sure we are clear that too little power, and pushing an amp beyond it's limits is too different things.

a speaker will never blow because it was too little power. If this was the case, we'd be blowing speakers all day when we have our stereo's at a low volume. Did you know that speakers will play cleanly and audibly with as little as 1 watt or less ? That's what the sensitivity rating is, how much SPL the speaker will produce with 1 watt of power.

But once we start the car, put the windows down, and start moving at 60mph... that 1 watt of power becomes awfully hard to hear, so we get amplifiers.

So supposed you have a 35 watt amp. The amp will deliver 35 clean watts (I'm talking good grade equipment here, not the pyramid / jenson crap).
but supposed at this 35 watts, it's sill not loud enough ? Well, most people just turn the gain up a little more, creating more output, but now the amp will distort since it is beyond it 's limits.

so we go out and get a 50 watt amp. Now the speakers are louder, and they sound better because we don't have to overdrive the amp to get the volume we want.

Because of this, many people think that it was the lack of power from the 35 watt amp that caused the speakers to blow.

mike

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custom 3rd gen kickpanels at http://www.lachernet.com/kickpanels

GndPrx

Actually I'm going to PARTIALLY disagree here. Too little power often causes the user to try to get more out of the amp than it's capable of. This results in the cranking up of the gain and the raising of the head unit volume to near full because they want "just a little more"

This causes either the head unit to push out a clipped signal from being full open to the amp clipping because it is trying to be over driven. This will cause audible distortion.

Now granted, this is end user error, but it can be directly linked to too little power.

It is always nice to have more power because that offers more head room. The more head room you have, the better the amp will run and the less the end user will try to abuse it...resulting in not pushing it to audible distortion.

Now the second point you made is also true...too much power can over drive a speaker...but this is usually WAY too much power not just more than what is recomended...of course that also is directly linked to the quality of the speaker, suspension, surrround, etc...

So the answer would be, either can LEAD to distortion. It's just a matter of finding a good match for all of your pieces.

Hope that makes sense...

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Carl
CarAudio Resources

[This message has been edited by GndPrx (edited August 05, 2001).]

DJSexay

Carl,
True, having too little power usually causes the end user to crank things beyond the limits, but like you said, that is user error. I agree with that and have seen my fair share of customers with low power amps with cranked gains wonder why they blew the 500 watt subs.

But from a purely technical standpoint, too little power will not blow a speaker.

A friend of mine was confused about amp power and what an audio signal really is in terms of voltage, current, resistance, and he thought that a 500 watt amp, would deliver 500 watts, no matter the volume. We had a little discussion on voltage levels, and power, and he is good to go!

mike

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custom 3rd gen kickpanels at http://www.lachernet.com/kickpanels

RSpeed

I have to agree with DJsexay. Pushing an amp beyond its limits will produce a distorted,or clipped,audio signal.It is this distortion which tends to blow loudspeakers.Too little power will not technically blow speakers,though it does tend to cause user end error as stated above,which could possibly lead to speaker failure.

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[This message has been edited by RSpeed (edited August 06, 2001).]

Tyler-88

i dunno, im no stero expert but from my experiences i notice distortion in stereos where people dont know what their doing. they try to get too much bass out of their subs and sure, it hits hard, but you got 125hrz goign to your sub (which will kill it rather quick i think). just take what you have and tune it so that is sounds nice, not loud. i'd recomend setting up yoru front end speekers before your bass

White_Boii

also another thing i dont think anyone sayed (and i think this thread is dead but oh well) dirty power also causes distortion, if you have a 50 dollar 500 watt amp, it will be a distorted sound...and someone said too little power will not blow a speakers, well thats true and its not, it maybe not initially BLOW the speaker, but over time it will damage the speaker...just my 2 cence

GndPrx

Please show me an example of where less power (treated right) has blown any speaker over time...I'd be willing to be that you have a hard time finding one good example.

As far as dirty power? A cheap amp will sound just as good as a high end amp if you keep the gain set to where the amp does not begin clipping. But I refer to my original post that given a cheap amp or lower power amp, the end user will inevitably try to crank the gain and cause clipping which leads to distortion...

Yes I did say that you can take a cheap amp (i.e. pyramid or the like) and make it sound good, it would just be at really low output. The reason you can get better from a high dollar lower power amp is because that high dollar amp is capable of putting out clean power at or beyond it's rated limit. The low dollar high power amp is maybe capable of 1/4 to 1/2 it's power in clean output. If you stay in that clean range you're fine.

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Carl
CarAudio Resources

Xenodrgn

So basically what you're all telling me is that I'm pushing the amp in the headunit too far.

(loud is -good-)

I can get a seprate amp to help fix this, but if I continue to push -that- to it's limits, I run the risk of damaging the speakers because they are just doing more than they were designed for.

Correct?

Camaro_hunter_d

diferent ground resistace and EMI interferance in the RCA's. Get the same ground on all parts and twisted rca'a and distortion goes away

Mike92RS

From the description, I doubt it is interference. It just sounds like a typical overdriven amp.

- Mike

9177

Or on a seperate amp to small of power and ground wire can cause distortion.